First posting of 3DO FAQ
Gert Niewahr
>Here it is folks! The very first version of the 3DO faq. (look ma, we've
>got a faq now :)
>
>stuff needed for the faq:
>Does anybody have info about the rumored emplant 3do in a cd-32 thingie,
Yes, it is NOT true. I have checked it thoroughly with sources inside 3DO
and they'd never heard about this Emplant thing until they read about it on
the net. And it is NOT possible for these Emplant dufes to do a hostile
clone of the 3DO: it would take hundreds of man-years to reverse engineer
the graphics coprocessors alone. It's just a total hoax, most likely
cooked up by desperate Commodore shareholders.
>or the 3do on a card for PCs? Those things come up all the time and Id
>like to try and find out the truth behind them.
The 3DO PC card is an almost announced product. It will be out next
summer.
>With its controller port up to 8 controllers can be daisy-chained on the
>system at once.
I think the 8 device limit may actually be conservative. The OS will let
you address more than that.
>Panasonic has little to do with the design of the system, they
>just build them.
Matsushita had a lot to do with the early configuration of the system,
but relatively little of late. They have asked for a lot of design
additions to the 3DO their bringing out in Japan.
>Q: Who else is Making 3DO systems?
>
>A: Right now, only Panasonic is making 3DO systems. Sanyo and AT&T are
>also going to release 3DO systems. Sanyo's system is scheduled to be
>released in mid-94. The AT&T system is scheduled to be released in late-94
>and is rumored to include a modem for networked games and communication.
>Each manufacturer will be able to customize their systems to some extent.
The AT&T 3DO will be a Panasonic 3DO with an integrated voice and data
modem. 2400 or 4800 baud, I'm not sure which. It was originally scheduled
to be on the market by 3/94.
There will be 5 or 6 different manufacturers making 3DOs by Christmas '94.
Each machine will have different ROMs, but they will essentially be the
same. The deal is, a manufacturer can add devices to the expansion bus or
add stuff to the ROMs but that's about it. Inside the core machine (look
at any of the block diagrams in the mags) they can't mess with much.
>Q: Who is developing software for the 3DO?
>
>A: Reportedly over 500 companies are licensed developers, and over
>160 software titles are currently in development.
Of those 160-180 titles in development, about 100 are scheduled to be out
next year. Realistically, you can depend on 35-40 actually being published
no matter what. These are titles that are so far along that they will be
published even if 3DO doesn't sell another machine. Yes, most of those
will be ports but some will be very good ports of very good games
(Microcosm, for example). No one knows for sure which will be the killer
game that makes the 3DO, although Total Eclipse may be it.
>Q: Who is Trip Hawkins?
>
>A: Trip Hawkins is the founder and CEO of the 3DO Company. He is also the
>founder of Electronic Arts, a well known software publishing company. Trip
>is the driving force behind the creation and development of the 3DO.
No, Trip was idly casting about for less proprietary consoles so he could
stop paying huge royalties to Sega and Nintendo. He was approached by
"NTG" and was smart enough to grab a good thing when he saw it. All he did
was sign the check and hire the publicists.
>Q: Who developed the 3DO system?
>
>A: Dave Needle and RJ Mical are named as co-inventors of the Machine. Needle
>and Mical previously worked on the the design team of the original Amiga
>computer, and on the design of the Atari Lynx handheld gaming system. The NTG
>(New Technologies Group) company designed most of the 3DO technology/hardware.
NTG is no more, though. It was absorbed by 3DO months ago.
>Q: Who are the seven partners that make up 3DO?
>
>A: Matsushita, AT&T, Time Warner, MCA, Electronic Arts, venture capital firm
>Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and the New Technologies Group(NTG).
EA owns 20%
Matsushita owns 15%
Time-Warner owns 15%
Kleiner-Perkins owns 10%
Trip owns 5%
AT&T owns 5%
NTG owns nothing, but some of its founders ended up with a lot of 3DO
stock.
sp...@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu
> In article <2et5d6$4...@delphinium.rtsg.mot.com> kr...@rtsg.mot.com (Scott A. Krotz) writes:
>>Here it is folks! The very first version of the 3DO faq. (look ma, we've
>>got a faq now :)
>>
>>stuff needed for the faq:
>>Does anybody have info about the rumored emplant 3do in a cd-32 thingie,
>
> Yes, it is NOT true. I have checked it thoroughly with sources inside 3DO
> and they'd never heard about this Emplant thing until they read about it on
> the net. And it is NOT possible for these Emplant dufes to do a hostile
> clone of the 3DO: it would take hundreds of man-years to reverse engineer
> the graphics coprocessors alone. It's just a total hoax, most likely
> cooked up by desperate Commodore shareholders.
No, the Emplant 3DO emulator isnt a total hoax cooked up by desperate Commodore
shareholders, its a total hoax cooked by Jim Drew, a fanatical Amiga owner
who makes a Mac II emulator for the Amiga and who keeps promising things he
cant deliver. He's been promising to have his Emplant board emulate
everything under the sun (PC emulation, Apple II emulation, Next emulation
Atari 800 emulation,etc). But all he's actually managed to deliver is a buggy
Mac II emulator for the Amiga. Other fanatical Amiga owners are latching
onto his wildly exaggerated claims iand spreading them far and wide in
the hopes that it will help the Amiga's sales.
Scott Corley
Steve Krause
> The AT&T 3DO will be a Panasonic 3DO with an integrated voice and data
> modem. 2400 or 4800 baud, I'm not sure which.
2400 or 4800 baud is enough to do real-time video games over the phone
network? Even if you only need to send control information, it still seems
like a tough challenge for so little bandwidth.
_________________________________________________________________________
Steve Krause, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA phone: 415-859-4746
E. Kontei
> In article <bprofaneC...@netcom.com>, bpro...@netcom.com (Gert
> Niewahr) wrote:
>
> > The AT&T 3DO will be a Panasonic 3DO with an integrated voice and data
> > modem. 2400 or 4800 baud, I'm not sure which.
If it's anything like the Edge modem, it'll be 4800,
with multiplexed voice so you can talk while you play.
> 2400 or 4800 baud is enough to do real-time video games over the phone
> network?
4800 is plenty for simple arcade games enough. People play BATTLETECH
over phone lines in GEnie, remember? If you program it right, you only
have to send control information for your unit, and receive it from
everyone else, preferably from a server. Just design a decent asymmetric
protocol, and... oops, getting technical, sorry...
--
E n r i q u e C o n t y
"There is what's legal, there is what's right, and there is what we do."
co...@cbnewsl.att.com jes...@ihlpm.att.com
Disclaimer: You're not dealing with AT&T
richard.m.brack
> In article <2et5d6$4...@delphinium.rtsg.mot.com> kr...@rtsg.mot.com (Scott A. Krotz) writes:
> >Does anybody have info about the rumored emplant 3do in a cd-32 thingie,
>
> Yes, it is NOT true. I have checked it thoroughly with sources inside 3DO
> and they'd never heard about this Emplant thing until they read about it on
> the net. And it is NOT possible for these Emplant dufes to do a hostile
> clone of the 3DO: it would take hundreds of man-years to reverse engineer
> the graphics coprocessors alone. It's just a total hoax, most likely
> cooked up by desperate Commodore shareholders.
The guy who designed emplant (Jim Drew) stated in one of the amiga groups
that he was looking into licensing the 3DO chips for a CD32 emplant. That's
all, *looking into* licensing the chips. I think some people took this a
bit too seriously...
Rich...
--
{ the itchman cometh /-/ _ i don't want to be your angel }
{ it...@cbnews.att.com /-/ _|_|_ i want to be your witch! }
{ att!cbnews!itch \-\/-/ ( * )tch -yello }
{ \/\/ /^\ }
Archer Sully
; In article <bprofaneC...@netcom.com>, bpro...@netcom.com (Gert
; Niewahr) wrote:
;
; > The AT&T 3DO will be a Panasonic 3DO with an integrated voice and data
; > modem. 2400 or 4800 baud, I'm not sure which.
;
; 2400 or 4800 baud is enough to do real-time video games over the phone
; network? Even if you only need to send control information, it still seems
; like a tough challenge for so little bandwidth.
That's plenty of bandwidth if you are clever. I've played "Modem Wars" on
C64's with 1200 baud.
-- archer
Gert Niewahr
>If it's anything like the Edge modem, it'll be 4800,
>with multiplexed voice so you can talk while you play.
>
Someone else told me that they heard at the last 3DO dev con that it will be the
Edge modem.
JT
>
>2400 or 4800 baud is enough to do real-time video games over the phone
>network? Even if you only need to send control information, it still seems
>like a tough challenge for so little bandwidth.
I can play Net Trek on my Mac using a buggy Mac client, dialing into
my Sun account at 9600, then running a trek client from the unix
prompt. It is no slower than playing with the "real" netrek client
from the Sun on ethernet in the labs. What slows me down is the
powerbook's trackball. Now that is TOUGH! ;)
JT